


Earth & Stone

by cherrytart



Series: Burglarising [12]
Category: The Hobbit (2012), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Conflict, Family Feels, Guilt, Multi, Other, bagginshield, billa is conflicted, dwarf customs and stuff, emotionally damaged people making poor decisions, fem!Bilbo, hobbit finance traditions, if thats even the right word, overuse of middle earth etymology, thorin is not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-05-01
Packaged: 2017-12-09 08:04:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrytart/pseuds/cherrytart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She is a Baggins, and a Took, and a burglar. She can be brave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first of two chapters. One shots after this. Thanks for reading!

Red.

Not blood, but a ruched scarlet red that makes her lips look dark and her eyes darker. Billa cannot understand it. So, she decides to ask.

“Why this colour?” she enquires, and Bessr’s light green eyes meet hers. The girls’ hair is also red, but a lighter shade tinged with gold and hints of strawberry, like her fathers in its richer shades.

“I don’t rightly know, Lady Billa.” Bombur’s eldest daughter says, tugging at the threads that will tie up the tunic, pulling them down the length of Billa’s back in short, frustrated motions. “It won’t _go_.”

“Try upwards, and you needn’t call me lady.” Billa says, gripping the bedpost, one hand over the other. This tunic is made for a dwarrowdam, that is the problem, for Billa is rather fuller in the chest than the ladies who lived in Erebor of old.

“Ooh, that _is_ better.” Bessr gives a quick smile as she changes the direction of her tugging and the tunic forms itself at last to Billa’s shape. Bessr fetches a girt of silvery metal and fastens it under Billa’s chest, looking dubiously at the hobbitess’ front as she does so.

Unused to being waited on so, Billa is nonetheless obedient. The process frustrates her beyond endurance, it is true, but after two days of keeping to the chamber Kili relinquished for her, she has been called to court, to stand before the King with her fellow hobbits, and so she must look the part.

“If you don’t mind me asking, milady…I mean mistress Billa…what’s the reason for…for them?” Bessr nods at Billa’s protruding bosom, flushing and ducking her face as she does so.

Billa steps down from the stool and considers. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“I only…I meant no offence, but is the little one still at the teat? Is that why they’re so…”

“No.” Billa laughs at Bessr’s candid shyness, suddenly grateful that she expected the girl’s offer of help. She may be less than sixty, a young age for a dwarrowdam, but she is deft and kind, and Freya likes her. Billa glances over to where her daughter is  absorbed in playing with Fili’s carved lion, and counts the slow ticks of relief and shame in her heart. “No, she is not.”

“So they are just…shaped like that?” Bessr’s asks, eyes round. “ All the _time_? How odd.” She glances down at her own smoother front. Tact, Billa reflects, is not something dwarrows know a lot of.

However, she is used to it by now- one has to be, sharing a corridor with Fili and Kili.

Them and their uncle.

But she has not seen Thorin since he moved Freya’s cot to her chambers, knocked his forehead gently against their daughter’s and left to placate the Ironfist lords, who are apparently calling for Billa’s blood to be spilt on Mahal’s altar in order to attest to her true nature. They are a suspicious clan, coming from so far north and keeping very much to their own, so she hears. But their leader, she thinks his name is Migan, does not seem to take as much offense to her as his underlings do- or at least he keeps it better hidden.

For that at least she can count her blessings- and that he has kept Thorin distracted, however inadvertently. Truly she does not know what to say to him- or what she would if he would even look at her a minute. It is rather inconsiderate of him to circumvent her plans for a talking to by completely disappearing, even from his own rooms.

Disconcerting further is the fact that Freya asks for him. Last night she had to get up and fetch her daughter only to find her tugging at Thorin’s locked door and whimpering. He was not within, Billa knew that, for her King does not sleep heavily and he would have heard their daughter.

Their daughter. It is dangerous, how quickly she has slipped into thinking that- but then again everyone in Erebor calls Freya such, even Bofur who is wholly and firmly on Billa’s side.

Billa does not like that there are sides. Goddess help her, she does not like that any of this has happened, and she is more than partially to blame. She knows that, better than they think.

But Thorin is too, they both are, and if he thinks to pass judgement upon her from atop his metal-mithril-marble whatever it is throne that they had to steal back in the first place, well then. He has yet another think coming. He may be a dwarf and immovable as his (quite lovely, Billa has to admit, the restorers have done a wonderful job) mountain, but her roots go deep as his, even if they are planted further west.

She is a Baggins of Bag-end. Her father’s mother was a Grubb and _her_ mother was a Boffin and Billa’s mother a Took, and Billa has enough Harfoot and Fallohide and just a drop of Stoor in her to make her a stubborn kind of hobbit indeed.

More than a match, she thinks as Bessr presses some of Billa’s own tatty brass hairpins into the hobbit’s loose braids, for Thorin Oakenshield. She is a hobbit of the Shire who reclaimed a mountain. She has cut webs and rode barrels and stolen rings and jewels and a King’s heart for her very own, and given it back again. Or so she chooses to believe.

She is Billa Baggins. And she can and will be brave.

*

“That went well, I think.” Paladin gives a grim sort of smile as they are ushered out of throne room and along a stone passage.

Billa presses her hand to her forehead and thanks whichever Valar is paying attention at the moment that she had the foresight to leave Freya happily playing with Bessr and Kili, both of whom had enthusiastic enough about remaining behind- why, Kili had practically chased her out of the door and down the corridor.

“Well?” Hamfast scoffs, fingers hooked through his borrowed suspenders (Ori’s) in an authoritative manner. “If that was well, please let’s stay far away from whatever _not well_ is.”

“Oh boys.” Billa sighs. They do not know Thorin as she does, and the fact that he sat through her audience with his eyes fixed on the pins in her hair is the least surprising fact. Nothing much had happened- Paladin had read out the declaration the mayor had signed, Balin had made some diplomatic noises, and Lord Dain (who Billa cannot help but like) had suggested they continue negotiations in private.

The squirming in Billa’s stomach as she sits down to wait for her…for Thorin. The document Paladin carries is going to cause more than a few hiccups in whatever is happening- which, truthfully, Billa hardly knows. She feels odd in this dwarvish rainment, which clings almost too naturally to her skin.

To be so at ease in Erebor- it cannot be. Yet neither can she shake it off entirely. She has never been able to, since she first entered these halls years ago and Thorin started draping her in far too many jewels.

He has not done so this time, thank goodness. Not that she was not grateful, but it had been more a symptom of his slow-growing madness than anything and she never wishes to see that again.

Billa is prepared for Thorin to be angry, to shout and rage  and be his stubborn arrogant prideful self that she loves better than anything save Freya, but if she catches even a whisper of that gold lust in his eyes, well- she has an emergency bag packed and Bofur has promised to show her, Freya and her fellows a secret way out through the mines.

She will not risk her child in the face of Durin’s curse. But she is sure it will not come to that. Thorin does not even wear gold now, and perhaps he too knows the dangers.

His eyes though when he enters the chamber and storms over to her are full of a much fiercer wrath. Gold-lust is sickness of the mind, it slows and fattens and twines itself round the soul. This is not gold madness, it is all Thorin and fire and _kingsblood_ , but he is angry nonetheless.

Balin manages to extract the papers from Paladin only to have them swiped with minimal care from by the King Under the Mountain, who moves raging blue eyes over the parchment before bringing them at last to rest on Billa.

“What exactly is a _wergild_?” Thorin asks, and Billa starts. She looks at Paladin, who avoids her gaze, and at the paper Thorin has shoved under her nose. Trying not to be distracted by his sudden closeness, she reads for the first time the demands of her relations.

Oh dear. What a fool she has been. And of course it would come to money.

“That.” she says waspishly, tapping a finger against the impetuos demand for compensation for her non-existent honour and virtue- “That is Odo Proudfoot’s doing, and you can feel free to cross it out.” The nerve of her cousin, to demand financial compensation on her behalf (with a cut for his own kin of course)- as if she ever even gave the slightest inclination!

Then again, she should have expected this. Not all her kin support her current life decisions, the Proudfeet least of all, so it is not wholly surprising they would try and regain at least some respectability, even through this most ridiculous of customs.

“Balin.” Thorin says, handing the paper over to his chief advisor, who fetches quill and ink and does as he is told, despite Paladin’s indignant huffing. Thorin shows minimal interest, instead training light blue eyes on Billa. “War?” he asks.

“Not my doing.” she answers, wishing she was back in her chambers with Freya and her boys. But Fili has been pressed into entertaining some of the Ironfists and Kili…she has asked enough of him, of both of them.

She has been selfish. She has had to be, but now she has Freya back (she _does_ , no matter what anyone says, and woe betide any dwarf who lays a finger on Billa’s child without permission), she must not be. But it is hard, oh it is damnably hard with Thorin standing in her space and his eyes on her, shifting and sending pulses through her skin.

“Oh, was it not? And might I ask how your Shire intends to fight us, Billa mine?” His fingers reach up briefly, card through loose strands of her hair so quick and light she can hardly remember to pull back before he does so himself.

“Don’t.” She breaks out, pushing back her chair and drawing herself to her full height. “Stop. I came here to get my daughter back, not to have any more to do with you, oh King under the Mountain. Our affairs are quite over. I wish you joy of your throne.” She instantly regrets that particular barb, but words once released cannot be drawn back, so she holds her ground.

“Quite done you say?” Thorin replies, and the room seems to narrow, filtering out Balin and Paladin and Hamfast and the guardsman looking exceedingly uncomfortable by the door. “Quite done. We have a child and you say _quite done?_ ”

“Yes.” Billa replies, and there it is- her long misplaced fury. She cannot say she is glad of its return, but it helps. Serves its purpose. Righteous rage is not the sole command of kings, and there is a whirlwind in her that he had better not test. “You turned us away. You left us- I may have walked away but _you left me_ \- I would never have gone, and you are a fool if you think so.”

“I do not.” Thorin says roughly. “But you cannot deny me my child. No longer will I endure to be parted from the two of you.”

Paladin squawks indignantly, but all Billa feels is the blood roaring in her own ears at Thorin’s claims. “Your child! You have had her what, a week? How _dare_ you…after _everything_ you’ve done you have no right, no right at all.” She knows the folly of her words in some far off distant part of herself, but forces them out anyhow.

Thorin’s eyes grow dark as he looks at her. “She is mine- no, ours, she is ours just as much as she is yours. I am her father.”

With a scoff of pure outrage, Billa pushes past this king who seeks to take her child from her and she whirls on him with fire in her grey-brown eyes. “And I am her mother- I birthed her and I raised her, alone and I will not allow you to take her.”

“I seek to do no such thing!” Thorin replies, and if they had swords they would be locked at the hilt.

“Thorin, enough.” Balin shakes his white bearded head in what seems like sorrow, but the king and the hobbit are beyond reaching.

“Billa.” Thorin says, daring to sound reasonable after all he has done. “I love her just as  you do.”

“Your men took her from me, they took her and they _hurt_ her, brought her here against her will and mine and you stand there and claim to love her, to keep her as yours after a week?” Billa snarls. She knows she is behaving in a way that would make her own mother look at her aghast, but she cannot bear this- cannot bear the guilt, the _shame_ he is making her feel, and how all it does is fuel her wrath.

“Aye.” Thorin replies, proud and strong as a king of old, utterly sure under his bloody _bloody_ mountain. “If I could take back what they did, I would, a thousand times, and my own deeds as well. But before you speak to me of weeks, Billa, answer me this. Could you have relinquished her, after a week of having her in your arms? After a day, or an hour, or a minute? Could you?”

Billa’s skin goes cold- the air beneath the rock rushing in to choke her, pipe and gullet clamming up and over. She looks at the king and does not breathe.

“I thought as much.” Thorin says. “Yet you ask it of me as though it were nothing.”

And the worst of it is, there is no victory in his tone. No recrimination when he has every right to chastise her, for using her love for Freya as a weapon against him. For that is what she had done, even as she spoke, without realising it almost. “I…I am…Thorin, for heaven’s sake you _banished_ me. I impugn your sacred laws by even standing here.”

“Then I rescind it.” He says, as if this is simple, or easy. Billa cannot breathe. “I name you traitor no longer, Billa Baggins. You might...” He sounds so sure, in spite of his hesitation, and it is that which truly breaks her.

“What? What would you have me do, my king?” She says, wooden as a tree in Eastfarthing forest.  

“Stay.” Thorin answers simply. “Leave this talk of war and contracts. Let me…our daughter needs you. Stay.” He is not asking, but it is as close as a king of any mountain will ever come. Billa blinks twice, aware of her gathering tears and _hating_ them.

Everything she had sworn to avoid, all her sensible plans are in tatters, and once again Thorin Oakenshield stands in the middle of it with squared shoulders and armour intact. _Do not leave me. Not now, not this time._ He says to her without words, as he always has, always could.  This time, though, Billa realises, the blame sits squarely on both their shoulders.

So neither of them will give an inch.

Not seeing any way back from the unbearable, unalterable truth of their situation, she does the only thing she can do. She looks around her, shakes her head in a minute gesture of helplessness, and makes for the door.

_She never left. He had left her, left her on the ground and retreated from her, and kept a small, torn part of her soul for his comfort. And now he would have the rest._

And that, Billa knows as she breaks into a run, is the one longing she cannot give into, as well as the truth she cannot avoid. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Certain coincidences occur, and an understanding is reached.

“Well, I hope you are satisfied with yourself.” Billa’s cousins tone of voice is arch bordering on sarcastic, and his burlier counterpart whose name Thorin is yet to discover will not let up glaring.

Before Thorin can snap back at the infuriating pair, Balin rises. “Remember to whom you speak, master hobbit. You stand before the Lord of Durin’s folk. I know you mean no harm, but I’ll not have you show disrespect to my king in his own halls.” A sharp twist goes through Thorin at his councillors words, part shame and part pride and affection for Balin- wise, loyal, steadfast Balin who never falters or missteps, it seems.

The hobbit- a Took by the rather odd name of  _Paladin_ \- gives a sniff in response. “Not my king, I’m afraid. And I’ll not have him disrespect my cousin.” There is something hidden in the halfing’s voice, but Thorin cannot make it out.

Instead, he sighs and shakes his head. “What disrespect I have shown Billa I can do nothing to alter, but I pray you answer me this- what else can I do but try and amend it? For our daughter’s sake, if she will not…”

“If she will not what?” The other halfling asks sharply. “If she does not want you? Is that what you mean? Of course she  _wants_  you. She must have loved you at least- she wouldn’t have showed her face in the Shire if she was ashamed for what she did.”

Thorin bristles- he cannot help it. “And who are you to speak on behalf of my burglar? Where comes this intimate knowledge?”

“I’m her gardener, is what I am, proud of it and a good bit more besides. Missus Belladonna taught me to read, she did, and when she died Miss Billa promised I’d always have a job at Bag-end, even after I left my Uncle’s teaching. The Bagginses have always been right good to us Gamgees and Greenhands, and I…spose I feel bad for how we treated Billa when she…”

“When she what?” Thorin asks, resisting the urge to grab the lad up by his braces in order to make him speak plainly rather than this Shire gibberish about gardening. he has to know- to fill in the gaps of her absence so that he can understand, Mahal take it all.

“When she came back, he means.” Paladin Took speaks, suddenly sounding tired and old beyond his years. “Hobbits…well, we’re not the most open minded of folk you could say, and for a spinster of Billa’s standing to up and go off adventuring was bad enough…but to come back with a dwarrow-babe at the breast…she found little kindness in Hobbiton.”

Thorin’s nails dig into his palms as he clenches his fists. It is his fault- if he had not sent Billa away from him, she would not have had to face the scorn of the Shire alone. She would not have sought refuge with the maker-be-damned elves.

If he had not been so mad with pride and gold, he might have kept her at his side of her own will rather than having her suffer in his presence now. Freya might have known the love of her father’s kin instead of having her mother’s turn their oh so proper noses up at her.

He raises his eyes to meet Billa’s gardener's- and it is a relief, he has to admit, to know what the boy’s connection to Thorin’s beloved is- he had thought for a time that she had replaced him not with his nephew but with another hobbit, and he hardly knew which was worse.

It must stop, he realises now. His jealousy and doubts, they must stop. If he can, he must try and see things as they are. He cannot let himself be swept up in the fever of having his burglar return to him- he thinks of how he coveted her in those last days before the battle, before she ran- keeping her in his chambers, in his bed with soft words and touches, showering her in jewels that looked well but clumsy on her soft shire skin. Dark promises of queenship that she could never accept.

No, not her.

Not her with her earth-bright eyes, her skin meant for the sun, not the dark of the mountain. But if he has even the slightest chance of making things up to her, he must try now to reach a place they can see clearly from.

He cannot show that side of his realisation to the two hobbits though, with their stubborn faces and their inflammatory roles of parchment. So instead, he puts on the face of a disgruntled king (not hard, since that is what he is most of the time) and asks the question that has been bothering him for a week or more.

“If Billa is so reviled in your shire, would you have her return there with you, Master Took of Great Smials? Would you have me pay your weregild and kiss my daughter and send my heart- my one soul, my  _atamanel-_ ” here he breaks off for a moment because he cannot endure it, simply cannot voice his bitter anguish in a way that these shirelings would understand…

Drawing in a breath, Thorin continues. “Would you have me send her back to her lonely burrow to face the taunts and gossip of her neighbours? Is that what you want?” And he asks honestly now, not in vindictiveness, but because he cannot credit it.

The Took puffs up, cheeks red obviously fixing for a pithy reply, and then all of a sudden deflates in front of him similar to how Billa had done minutes previously. “What I want, Mr King Under the Mountain, is for my cousin to never have met you. I want Billa to be  _happy-_ I want to go home and get married to the girl I’ve loved since I was ten years old and I want my cousin to be there when my children are born. And until now I thought that was what she wanted-”

“But it isn’t.” The gardener boy pipes up. “…When she’s here, with your nephews and your company and  _you…_ she might not be thrilled with you, but she’s happier here. I know her, and I know that.”

“She does not seem happy.” Balin points out. “But perhaps she is afraid.”

A sticking feeling in his throat, Thorin searches for what to say. “I do not know what she wants. I would give it to her, if only she said the word…I would give her  _anything_.” He stresses, yet somehow feels as though he is saying the wrong thing. He was never in love before Billa. He never will be again, and he knows not how to express just how singularly he adores her.

“Maybe, milord, just maybe- instead of saying that to us,  you should ask  _her_. The green lady knows, no one else does.” Paladin Took says quietly as he and his fellow turn to go, leaving Thorin Oakenshield to grit his teeth, swallow his pride and do what he can to make amends. 

*

He is resolved, as he makes his way to Billa’s chamber, to demand nothing. To listen, and more importantly to hear her again, as he used to in the murky mornings in the wild when he would find her wrapped in blankets at the edge of the camp and her words held a unique kind of magic for him. In those frostbitten minutes when all he wished to do was hold her and  _hear._ Hear the earthy music of her voice and the singing of her soft, bruise-bitten skin.

Mussed and fussing and beautiful with her words. For him.

However, Thorin is caught off guard by the fact that when he enters Billa’s rooms she is leaning forward with her hands splayed flat on the table whilst Dain , standing across from her and blocking her partially from Thorin’s view, speaks rough and hurriedly to her in a purposeful undertone.

Billa gives a sniff when she sees Thorin standing immobile in the doorway, looking at his cousin and  _his_  burglar seemingly in cahoots. He had not expected to find this- he had thought Kili would still be here trailing after Bombur’s girl- and from that he’d expected an argument with his nephew over the fresh torment Billa is going through.

Aule's forges, his burglar had looked so terrified, tiny in front of him and utterly defeated as he never wanted again. Her eyes sparkle with some kind of sad defensiveness and her mouth is bitten pink. Now though, she draws herself up and inward and Dain, seeming to recognise it, nods his head in Thorin’s direction before returning his attention to Billa. “You remember what I told you, lass.” he says, making as if to touch her stiff shoulder but seemingly thinking better of it.

Thorin barely sees him go, so fixed is he on Billa’s small form. His halfling is using the table as a block between them, one hand clutched into her loosened braids (and what he would not give to sit her against him and turn them to those of the line of Durin, so that all could see how high he held her) and the other smoothing out the crimson skirts of her tunic.

She looks very beautiful. And the sight of her in the garments of his people inflames his blood, makes him wish for privacy so that he could lift her skirts and worship her with hand and mouth.  _Precious_. She is that, and more besides.

To chase those thoughts away, for surely they would not be well received, he takes a step back and closes the door with a soft thud. “What was Dain doing here?” he asks, striving not to sound as absurdly accusatory as he feels.

“He had some things to tell me.” Billa says quietly, pulling at the pins in her hair, loosening them one by one and laying them on the table, carding her hands through loose soft gold to work out the kinks as she does so. Thorin remembers how she would gasp when he curled his hand into her hair and pulled and struggles to keep his breathing even.

They are poorly made, her hairpins, and he decides that is what his first gift to her will be- hair adornments tipped in mithril and diamond, made by his own hand. He turns his attention then to the words he promised himself to hear out. “What?” Thorin asks. “What did he tell you?”

Billa looks at him, wide eyed and a little nervous. “He talked to me about laws. Your laws. Old ones, older than Erebor I would think.” she says lightly.

“Ahh.” Thorin says.  _(later he will ask Dain **why** , why he took it upon himself to do so and his cousin will go red in the face and reply that his men took her child, that shame is his and ever will be, and the least he could offer Billa Baggins of Bag-end was the truth.)_

“Were you going to tell me?” she asks sharply.

“Of course.” he says gruffly. “I did not know that you would think so low of me,  assume I would try and keep you here against your will. No matter what our laws state-”

“Apparently they state that you have no claim on Freya unless I name you her father. I could pick her up and walk out of here, because you are not my husband. You could not stop me.” She speaks as if testing something, him or herself Thorin cannot tell.

He ignores the pain her words bring him and instead looks around her chamber. On the bed is a bag, half packed with clothes, but his daughter it seems has fallen asleep on top of them, her dark curls a mess. He swallows. “Will you?” he asks, knowing she can tell what he speaks of.

Billa wrings her hands. “I don’t know. If you’d have asked me a day ago…a week ago I might have said yes, but now this…and you…it is rather difficult.”

“Yes.” Thorin replies. “Difficult.” There is a word they can both agree on at least.

Billa is pacing now, huffing quietly. “What you don’t understand is that it shouldn’t be  _like_  this. I can’t even begin to try and explain…oh dear.” Freya has woken up and is making a squealing beeline for Thorin. He cannot help but smile, a true smile, swinging her up into his arms and letting her hug him round the neck.

Billa looks at them both with lost eyes. “In the Shire.” she begins, softer than soft. “In the Shire, it is not like this. She…I am not your wife, and so they use that to shame me. If you were a hobbit, you could take her from me with a snap of your fingers. But here…”

“You are her mother.” Thorin demurs, not understanding how anyone could see it differently. The Shire is a queer place indeed to have such misshapen laws. “I would not dream of it. What has passed was wrong.”

At that, Billa turns her back on him, going over to the bed and carding her hands through the rumpled clothes and trinkets. He can see the heaviness of her breathing, almost feel the sharpness that twitches at her temples. Eventually, she seems to come to a decision and faces him again, sliding down to sit on the bearskin spread by the side of the bedstead, tucking her hands round her knees.

“Come sit with me, King Under the Mountain.” she commands, smiling with her clever words and a rose pink mouth.

Thorin does as he is bid, setting a wriggling Freya gently down on the rug and lowering himself to the floor next to his hobbit. He takes care not to impose upon her space, but she is such a warm, sweet thing and he can feel her without even touching an inch of her- fabric or skin.

Their daughter stands up on small booted feet, surveying the temporary peace between her parents. Mahal help anyone who tries to circumvent the will in those sapphire eyes, Thorin thinks. Seemingly satisfied, Freya pitches herself into her mother’s lap and hooks her arms around Billa’s neck.

“Yes, my love?” Billa asks, perfectly intuned to the whims of their child in a way that makes Thorin just a little more hopeless in the face of her. “What is it?”

“Mister Thorin said he’s my da.” Freya whispers, as though imparting a secret.

Billa flinches a little, careful not to let Freya see though. “Yes, sweet. He is.” There is no real reluctance in her tone, but no joy either and Thorin frowns. She sounds tired, just as her cousin did.

And then, their daughter draws back, looks sideways at Thorin and back at her mother. “Why?” she asks.

Billa gives a slightly hysterical sigh, and Thorin represses a laugh. “Because, little treasure, I love your mother very much. So the maker gave us you, to remind us of that.”

Seemingly satisfied with this explanation, Freya nuzzles sleepily between them, hands in Billa’s hair. His burglar looks at him with an eyebrow crooked upward. “Very clever, Thorin.” she says, just a touch waspishly. “Sweetheart, don’t pull.” Her tone gentles then as Freya yanks intently at her hair, pulling it away from her neck.

“Look, Adad.” Freya’s lisping directs Thorin to the bared length of Billa’s neck, pale and spotted with freckles. And marks, too- white marks in the shape of fingernails, red underneath, marks that make his stomach swoop and the acrid taste of guilt fill his mouth.

But he owes them this much, so he does not look away. Billa’s face flushes dark as he scrutinises the small scars he left on her, remnants of madness and rage and thwarted love.  There is much he despises in himself, but he thinks that this might top it all.

“Boo boo.” Freya says helpfully. And then, when no one offers any solutions, she tugs on Thorin’s braid. “Kiss.” she orders him, tapping her fingers against her mother’s neck.

Thorin shakes his head. “I don’t think your Amad wants me to kiss her, Freya.” Especially not there, he purposely does not add.

Freya makes a dissatisfied noise, but allows Billa to cover her neck again. What surprises Thorin is when Billa takes his hand in hers (and yes, perhaps his breathing speeds up a little at her touch but that is none of anyone’s business) and presses it to the hollow of her neck, above her collarbone. He feels her heart beat there, and the warmth of her skin.

“That is where her head rested.” Billa whispers. “Right there, when she was a babe. I wish…” she cuts herself off, biting her lip and releasing his hand.

“I would have given anything to be there, Billa. Tell me what you would have of me and it will be done.”  _Only do not send me away. Do not leave me with my gold and my jewels and my mountain, for they will be cold comfort in your absence as they have been these five years past._

“Oh, Thorin.” Billa says, allowing Freya to crawl from her lap to his, where their little girl busies herself fiddling with the fur on his collar. “That is not how these things work. And don’t look at me like that, for I don’t know how they  _do_  work either.”

“I do.” Thorin says. “I could not deny you anything. You are my  _atamanel_.” He speaks the word without thinking, forgetting she will not understand.

“ _A_ ta _man **el**_.” Billa sounds out the word, sending a thrill through him.

“You are in my very breath.” Thorin whispers, his eyes riveting on Billa’s. “In my blood and bones, and though it pains me to relinquish you, I will not hold you here. My heart has done that for me. I will bear it.” His words are true, but oh he hopes she will not put them to the test. “I only ask that you let me come to you at times, to see our child grow.”

“Oh for goddess sakes, Thorin.” Billa says in a rush. “That is not fair. You say such things and now I cannot leave because you have said them. Not without ruining us all.”

“I did not mean-” Thorin begins, but Billa waves a hand at him.

“I know. I don’t think any of us meant for any of this to happen.” She gives a very matter of fact sigh, looking at him candidly. “You have to go soon, don’t you?” she asks then.

“Yes.” he admits reluctantly. Would that he could sit here the rest of the day with his woman and child, in peace and comfort- or the closest they can come to each. “I am a King.” he reminds them both.

Billa grants him a half smile, and oh she has never more deserved the word, breath of all breaths for she steals the very air from his lungs with that simple movement and Mahal help him is he going to start writing love poetry like some shiny haired elf?

He shakes off that particularly disturbing thought as Billa draws their daughter back to her and catches one small peddling leg by the ankle, lifting up her child’s booted feet to show Thorin, who grimaces. She does not look happy. “Well, before you do go then, o mighty King, we need to talk about  _these_.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Progress! Well, sort of.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a real bitch to write because I keep causing pain to my otp please send help i can't stop myself.  
> Ahem. Thorin POV up next, and hobbit shenanagins. :)


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